Phototherapy has recently been recognized as having wide range of applications in both the medical and cosmetic fields including use in surgery, therapy and diagnostics. For example, phototherapy has been used to treat cancers and tumors with lessened invasiveness, to disinfect target sites as an antimicrobial treatment, to promote wound healing, and for facial skin rejuvenation.
Photodynamic therapy is a type of phototherapy involving the application of a photosensitive agent to target tissue then exposing the target tissue to a light source after a determined period of time during which the photosensitizer is absorbed by the target tissue. Such regimens, however, are often associated with undesired side-effects, including systemic or localized toxicity to the patient or damage to non-targeted tissue. Moreover, such existing regimens often demonstrate low therapeutic efficacy due to, for example, the poor selectivity of the photosensitive agents into the target tissues.
Therefore, it is an object of the present disclosure to provide new and improved compositions and methods useful in phototherapy.